Different facets of COVID-19-related stress in relation to emotional well-being, life satisfaction, and sleep quality

INTRODUCTION: As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown, it is of great importance to investigate how people can maintain their mental health during chronically stressful times. This study therefore investigated which facets of COVID-19-related stress (Fear of COVID-19, financial worries, and social isolation) impacted people the most during a third COVID-19 infection wave from March until May 2021 and how these facets relate to well-being (emotional well-being and life satisfaction) and sleep quality. METHODS: A study sample of 480 German participants (M(age) = 43, SD(age) = 13.7, 20–69 years, 50.8% female) completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire. RESULTS: As predicted, social isolation was reported most often, followed by fear of COVID-19 and financial worries. In accordance with our expectations more social isolation and financial worries predicted lower emotional well-being and sleep quality. In contrast to our hypothesis, fear of COVID-19 only predicted emotional well-being and not sleep quality. Life satisfaction was solely predicted by financial worries and not by social isolation and fear of COVID-19, which only partly confirmed our hypotheses. These associations remained stable after controlling for age, gender, household income, and living alone. DISCUSSION: Financial worries, although reported the least often, were the strongest and most stable predictor for emotional well-being, sleep quality, and life satisfaction. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.